Wikipedia:WikiProject New York State routes/News

[edit] Introduction

With the overall quality of New York state highway articles at its highest point ever, I believe that this is an appropriate time to relaunch the project newsletter, which has been dormant for over a year. In this issue, I cover the state of the project, comment about new historical resources, and ask you, my fellow project members, to give opinions on several issues related to the project.

The "in real life" stories, which were a prominent part of volume one of this newsletter, will likely return in some capacity next month.

Featured story

[edit] The State of the Project

By TwinsMetsFan

The project has come a long way since its inception in February 2006. In the two years since, we have created articles in some form on every current state route in the state and have developed lists containing every state route, Interstate Highway, U.S. Route, and reference route in the Empire State. We've had over a dozen articles reach at least Good Article status; two of these have also been promoted to A-Class, the highest assessment class given by a WikiProject. Almost half of the articles within the coverage of this project are at B-Class, or at what could be termed as an article that has "the majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article". It thus goes without saying that the project is in good shape...or does it?

On the flip side, the statistic given above about B-Class articles can be turned around to say that over half of our articles are incomplete in some way. The Article Improvement Drive, which many editors said that they would contribute to when the idea was proposed in November 2007, has whittled down to two, sometimes three, editors. Activity as a whole in the project, excluding myself and a couple other editors, is very low. County routes, which NYSR has "covered" since the County Route project was folded into NYSR, has devolved into a myriad of poorly-designed lists; the vast majority of such have been tagged as needing attention.

Overall, NYSR has flaws but these flaws are both correctable and are much smaller than what some state highway projects are currently dealing with. I have proposed some changes to the project to remedy some of these; see related story below. Presented below is a statistical look at NYSR since late November 2007, when these statistics were first recorded.

Assessed article quality, November 2007 to present

Statistics are taken from the first day in that month, with the exception of November, in which the statistics are derived from the first complete bot run on November 23.

Date	A	GA	B	Start	Stub	Total	% B+
November 2007	0	0	118	171	384	673	18
December 2007	0	2	122	176	379	679	18
January 2008	0	7	151	198	303	659	24
February 2008	0	8	160	209	279	656	26
March 2008	1	8	210	196	239	654	34
April 2008	2	13	254	197	186	652	41

Other stories

[edit] Need history?

By TwinsMetsFan

Since February, I have been actively expanding my map collection in an attempt to "patch holes" in the histories of state highways in New York. The fruits of my efforts can be seen here. If anyone has any questions about a route during these time periods, feel free to post a message on my talk page. Other resources that can, and often do, provide useful information can be found on the U.S. Roads WikiProject page and on the NYSR project page. Also new to the NYSR resource library is WP:NYSR/MS, a breakdown of most, if not all, maintenance swaps between New York State (NYSDOT) and the counties of the state from 1979 to the present.

[edit] We Want Your Comments!

By TwinsMetsFan

Several changes to the project have been proposed here. Your input is essential to making the project a better and more efficient location to collaborate.

[edit] Project news

• New York State Route 32 is the current project selected article. If you know of an article that is project selected article quality, nominate it today!

• Looking for the New York cure to WikiBoredom? Check out these maintenance categories:
  • Routes needing mileposts
  • New York road articles needing attention
  • Wikipedia requested photographs in New York

• The lowest former route with no article is New York State Route 152.

• The current Article Improvement Drive collaboration is New York State Route 93.

[edit] Member news

Beginning next issue, this section will be the home for all news relating to NYSR participants. We'll also give a shout-out to the "Member of the Month", the participant who performed the most over the span of that month as determined by the editorial staff of this newsletter. Write-in votes or suggestions are also welcomed.

[edit] From the editor

The newsletter would like to hear from you, the reader. What do you like about the current format? What should be changed? Removed? Added? Your comments are needed.

Lastly, remember that this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue, to be released on May 4. Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply sign up here or just start editing!

[edit] Contributors to this issue

• TwinsMetsFan (editor)